The Inky's Melissa Dribben makes a fascinating comparison between the "Catholic Church" and the "Islamic hierarchy" and their penchants for "cruel crackdowns."

The cruelty of Islamic fundamentalism, she avers, is shown by an incident involving a 75-year-old woman in Saudi Arabia who was sentenced to 40 lashes, four months in jail and deportation for allowing two young men, who are not relatives, to visit her home.

"Lest you give in to the tempation to judge Islam harshly," Dribben writes (and gee whiz we wouldn't want to do that) "let me direct your attention to the outskirts of the city of Recife in northeast Brazil."

There, the cruelty of Catholicism is shown by a regional archbishop who ex-communicated the mother of a pregnant 9-year-old girl for allowing doctors to perform an abortion on her.

But let's compare the cruelty in Dribben's examples:

Excommunication (you are no longer a member of our
religious club) vs. 40 lashes, months of imprisonment and being kicked out of the country.

Which religious authority would you rather live under? Is it being too "harsh" to judge one religion more civilized than the other?

As for the "cruel crackdowns" of secular governments, like the ones that existed in the Soviet Union, Cambodia and still exist in North Korea and China where millions have been persecuted, imprisoned and killed for their religious beliefs well, never mind. They're beside Dribben's point, whatever it was.